Q: What are masterwork rolls?
A: Most legendary weapons are capable of being Masterworked. The masterwork system is a way for you to upgrade your favorite weapons to their maximum potential.
Q: What does it take to upgrade a weapon to a masterwork?
A: Upgrading your weapons, in broad terms, takes a small amount of glimmer, legendary shards, and, most importantly, Enhancement Cores.
Depending on what Tier your weapon is at, the requirements to raise it to the next tier increase the closer the weapon is to being fully masterworked (Tier 10).
Q: What benefits do I get for masterworking a weapon?
A: Each tier that you increase your weapon will grant a small buff to a single stat, chosen randomly when the item drops.
Beyond that, at Tier 5 you gain access to a kill tracker. At Tier 10, your multi-kills will generate orbs of light.
Q: So what are these "masterwork roll" stats?
A: These are the possible stats that upgrading your weapon will grant a bonus to. Depending on what tier you are at, you can grant anywhere from 1-10 additional points in any of the stats listed to your weapon.
Q: Any catch with this?
A: The Bungie API currently says that all weapons can potentially roll with all stats as their masterwork stat. This obviously isn't accurate, as Blast Radius isn't applicable to, say, Auto Rifles.
The list you see on this page is trimmed to only show stats that actually appear on the weapon. However, it is possible that Bungie has additional logic behind the scenes that further filters these
possibilities to, for example, prevent certain items from being able to have an Impact masterwork. Until Bungie modifies the API files to 100% accurately display which masterwork stats are possible on
each item, take what you see here with a pinch of salt.
-Speaking broadly, aggressive shotguns are one of three shotgun frames with a noteworthy PVE niche. For single-weapon DPS, rapid-fires have aggressives beaten; aggressives are good for swap rotations if you have enough handling (relevant if you're running Tractor Cannon or if somebody brought Lunafactions); and lightweights do a little less damage but bring better natural handling and reserves than aggressives along with the lightweight intrinsic bonuses. Slugs are weaker than they used to be and precisions just don't do all that much damage for some reason.
-Due to changes in how Vanguard drops work, it's much easier to get a good Xenoclast drop than it once was (vanguard focusing wasn't a thing when this came out, neither was having multiple perks in the 3rd and 4th columns after doing rank resets). As a lightweight, Xenoclast is great for Arcstrider players in particular for the free 20 mobility (if you screw up a Gambler's Dodge, it'll come back faster), but the other classes can benefit from the extra sprint speed, handling, and ammo economy when 12P is called for.
-People appreciate Surrounded much more these days than they used to, and A Sudden Death is the only aggressive frame in the slot to get it (along with Imperial Decree in the kinetic slot).
-Weapon surge mods are a thing, and the best heavy weapon for swap DPS in the game right now is a solar rocket launcher (Apex Predator). Gjallarhorn is also solar. For that reason, if you want a similar shotgun for boss DPS, you're looking for Mindbender's Ambition from legacy nightfall focusing. If you're doing Tractor Cannon, you'd want to match it with a void shotgun, which probably means Comedian. There isn't an arc heavy weapon right now that's as relevant as those three heavies for swap DPS contexts. This will surely not be the case in the future, but for now A Sudden Death misses out on a 10-25% damage buff (depending on where you get your surges) from not being able to use the same surge as your heavy.
-Grave Robber is just not that good these days (well, it's good on glaives, and with Swashbuckler, but neither of those are relevant here). You'd think it'd be great with 12P, but the issue is that you're just unlikely to need to shoot your shotgun so many times it requires a reload if you're using a typical 12P build. By the time you do need to reload it, you've probably found the time to do so. Auto-Loading Holster does essentially the same thing without requiring you to get a melee kill, as well.
So, two years later, this is a still good shotgun, but there are dozens of good shotguns out there, and this one isn't a standout in any PVE use case I can think of.